The present invention relates to a wall-mounted switch box for controlling a plurality of household AC lighting circuits and more particularly to a system of lighting circuits in which one or more of the circuits may include fluorescent lighting.
Typical household wiring usually includes a panel of lighting switches located in a hallway or foyer for controlling a plurality of lighting circuits in the hallway and in adjoining rooms. Sometimes dimmers are included along with the light switches for controlling the level of power supplied to each one of the lighting circuits. These dimmers usually take the form of reostats which are manually set to the desired level of brightness.
A single line programmable dimmer for one of such circuits is shown in our co-pending application Ser. No. 724,015 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,649,323 issued Mar. 10, 1987 entitled MICROCOMPUTER-CONTROLLED LIGHT SWITCH. That application describes a programmable dimmer actuated by a pair of single pole, single throw switches. This device is capable of operating a single load containing an incandescent light. It is not suitable for operating a fluorescent light because a fluorescent light requires an additional input to operate a heater. Moreover, ordinary dimmer switches cannot be connected to fluorescent lights because of the ballast requirements for the heater circuits.